News Byte: Re-envisioning Gaud铆’s New York City Skyscraper
In 1908, Spanish architect Antoni Gaud铆 designed a futuristic skyscraper for lower Manhattan. Dubbed the 鈥淗otel Attraction,鈥� the project was to feature a castle-like structure of cone-shaped towers that would have housed a hotel, restaurants, a theatre, an exhibition hall, galleries, and a top-level space offering panoramic views of the city. Soaring more than 1,100 feet, the Hotel Attraction would have been the tallest building in the country at that time.
However, the skyscraper never came to be鈥攗nless you count a recent installation led by听Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa, Ph.D., M.Arch II, associate professor听of architecture, who also oversees the artificial intelligence lab related to the听architectural computational technologies, M.S.听program.
On , as part of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation鈥檚 Art in the Parks exhibition program, visitors to Staten Island鈥檚 Stapleton Waterfront Park had the opportunity to visit 鈥淕aud铆鈥檚 NYC Skyscraper.鈥� Leveraging big data, simulation, artificial intelligence, and robotic fabrication, the installation proposed a different structural prototype based on Gaud铆鈥檚 explorations, including an optimized construction system with a catenary shell structure. Measuring 8 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 12 feet high, the arch-like structure was made of 100 percent recycled aluminum alloy and enabled park visitors to experience views of the Manhattan, Jersey City, and Brooklyn skylines from inside an 鈥渆mpty skyscraper structural envelope.鈥�
Working under Lorenzo-Eiroa鈥檚 supervision and mentorship, several students from the architectural computational technologies program assisted in the project, which was sponsored by a 蘑菇传媒 Institutional Support for Research and Creativity (ISRC) grant. Students included:
- Mike Saad
- Yashraj Chauhan
- Arefin Chisty
- Selin Dastan
- Jacob Sam
- Meraj Nasir
- Karan Patel
- Alejandro Romero
- Amisha Bavadiya
- Jahan Selim
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